Education reporter

Explosive enrollment growth in area public schools during the early 2000s has cooled along with the economy, and some school administrators say that’s a blessing in disguise.

Oconee County schools added 845 students from 2001 to 2006 in the county’s pre-K through 12th grade classes, for example, a 15.5 percent growth rate. But from 2006 to 2011, enrollment grew by only 221 students — just 3.5 percent — to 6,532 students, according to statistics kept by the Georgia Department of Education.

Oglethorpe County enrollment has actually declined over the past five years — down 6.6 percent to 2,309 students after growing by 14 percent from 2001 to 2006.

In the Athens area, only Clarke County is seeing an increase in enrollment; Clarke schools grew by 5 percent to 12,444 students from 2006 to 2011.

The boom and bust in school enrollment is tied directly to the state’s economic situation, said University of Georgia demographer Doug Bachtel, a professor in the university’s College of Family and Consumer Sciences.

“Since the late 1960s, Georgia’s growth has been driven by new people moving in,” he said. They came because of the state’s growing economy and job possibilities, particularly in the Atlanta region.

The national housing crunch has also contributed to the slowdown in the state’s growth, he said.

Randy Morrison, the assistant school superintendent for financial operations in Oconee County, doesn’t mind the slowdown in student enrollment, however.

Oconee voters last week approved a five-year extension of a 1 percent sales tax for school construction, he noted.

Most of the money will go to renovate aging schools and to upgrade communications technology.

“If we needed to build additional permanent classrooms, we would be really stretched for funds,” he said. “But by having stable growth, we’re able to concentrate on long-term maintenance.”

The slower growth is good for Madison County schools, given the austerity cuts in state school funding, said Madison County School Superintendent Allen McCannon.

Adding more students means adding more teachers and adding more classrooms — and adding more classrooms is hard in Madison County, which can’t collect nearly as much in sales tax as richer counties like Oconee, Barrow and Clarke.

“If we were growing, it would be scary,” McCannon said.

The slow growth does have a downside, Morrison said.

The state allocates money to school districts based on calculations of how many teachers the district will need for its anticipated enrollment, but as growth slows, he said, it’s a little bit harder for planners to anticipate which grades and subject areas will need new teachers, or need fewer teachers.

Oglethorpe superintendent Veta New faces even tougher decisions.

As enrollment declines, so does state money coming to the school district, she said.

The national economy is slowly improving, with Georgia limping along behind most of the country, however, Humphreys said. But job growth in Georgia, along with population and economic growth, may remain slow for several more years, he said.